Plastic has grown to play a hugely beneficial role in supporting modern society, crucial to the supply of essential services such as cultivation, distribution and preservation of food; supply and distribution of energy; advanced healthcare; education; energy efficient transportation and  buildings; access to drinking water and sewerage; flood management. Plastic plays a similarly contributive role in broadening access to luxury goods and convenience of lifestyle. Plastic is typically associated with cheap goods and single-use products of marginal benefit to society, but is equally used in essential, highly engineered, sophisticated and high quality applications. Low cost, high durability and huge versatility has resulted in rapid expansion in use of plastic, with demand driven by the mega-trends of population growth, urbanisation, individual wealth growth, environmental efficiency and desire for convenience.    

The Problem with Plastics

Plastic however has a problem - more than 30% of the world's population lacks access to responsibly managed waste collection and disposal. This results in leakage of waste - including plastic - to land and marine environments, where the very durability of plastic means that it remains for hundreds of years - unsightly, affecting marine life and biodiversity and perhaps even threatening the ability of our oceans to moderate our climate. Additionally, the complexity of plastic articles and structure of industry has meant there has been very little focus on improving the environmentally efficiency of use of plastic. Linear business models optimise the supply of services to the point of consumption without consideration of what happens thereafter. Industry has learned to recycle other materials - paper/cardboard, aluminium, glass etc. - through necessities of cost efficiency and/or social pressure. The plastics economy is now at that same point where change is urgently required, not only to mitigate leakage into the environment, but to reduce the usage of fossil fuels and hence emissions of carbon contributing to climate change.  
 

Our Societal Role

We believe such change not only can be achieved, but is a social necessity. We can hope that technology brings solutions to keep us out of trouble, but as our global population continues to rise, there comes a point when society has to more effectively balance convenience and year-round luxury with environmental consequence. Industry has a critical role to play in the transition towards circular usage of plastics, starting with embracing the challenge, rapid adoption of improvements and transparent disclosure of impact founded in science, designing supply chains for more circular use (Reuse/Refill/Recycle) and driving meaningful change. Governments also have a critical role to play in creating the right enabling environment, through policy and medium- to long-term financial and market-influencing incentives. We need to implement pragmatic, quick impact solutions that are guided by the long term vision of a green economy. 

Challenges Ahead

This is an extraordinarily complex problem founded in financial, political, technical and social realities. We believe however the solutions exist and that we can contribute to change through creating a much deeper understanding of the issues, balancing pragmatism and idealism, and scientific, social and economic perspectives. That intellectual challenge combined with the prospect of making meaningful challenges is what motivates us.